Adventures of a farmer's daughter in Hawaii

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Chock

Although the anti-GMO factions may be celebrating today, those who are versed in the sciences and technology know that it is a very disappointing day. Through sneaky maneuvering and dirty politics, the ignorant lawmakers strong armed their way to pass a bill doomed to fail. The only way that they could get it to pass was to break their word to vote with the 6 members and fill it with the 7th one. Call it what you want, but it just shows the lack of integrity by Hooser, Bynum, Yukimura, Furfaro, and the latest add, Chock.

The writing is on the wall when many of these leaders are associated with the GMO Free groups and anti-ag groups like Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety. If these leaders are so honestly wanting for the public to be safe, why not do this kind of legislation across the board instead of pinpointing at a single industry? If the pesticide issue is truly a real issue that you are worried about, why not cover the disclosure across the board to protect everyone? Why isn’t the county going to be a part of this disclosure since they use the most to begin with? Why aren’t all pesticide users from homeowners to pest control companies to hotels and golf courses not covered but such a law if the county is out to protect people? This law reeks of corruption and underhanded motives operating that is the very thing that these activist complain about yet openly show it front and center.

What makes this day very sad is that we have these so called community leaders, who have been oblivious or just choose to ignore the kind of environment that the agricultural industry is enduring here. These leaders “listen to the people” and ignore the evidence. Evidence and data mean nothing here in our state and hearsay and anecdotes rule. That is really a blow to the scientific method and evidence base that has been built for over 2 decades.

While there are MMA fighters, bikini clad art majors, bus drivers, social science PhD candidates, and other followers cheering today, the people who studied crop sciences, plant pathology, cell molecular biology, agronomists, plant breeders, and others with the right background to make the statements about the issue have been completely ignored today. The researchers and other scientists who are a looking at ways to solve the world’s problems and their work has been silenced by an overwhelming majority of naysayers, who have no clue about the direction of this evolving technology. Today was a win for ignorance and it isn’t going to move Hawaii anywhere other than to keep people in the dark. Apparently, that is what the politicians like Hooser, Bynum, Yukimura, Furfaro, and Chock prefer our future to be like. That is just plain old irresponsible and they don’t even know it.